Health Alert

Hazardous asbestos fibers at the WTC exposed more than 110,000 people to the dangerous material; this includes 80,000 tower workers, 30,000 area residents and nearly 4,000 first responders. Asbestos exposure is directly linked to mesothelioma cancer and other asbestos-related diseases.

For years, Frank Greening has argued with our research group, which is not in itself unwelcomed because we welcome review of our research. Here I will refer to recent arguments by FG and our responses, to let the reader decide for himself whose “side” has the greater scientific veracity. There are two main categories in this discussion: 1) Newton’s Third Law as applied to WTC Towers and 2) Discussion of the red/gray chips paper.

1) Newton’s Third Law as applied to WTC Tower

On April 19, 2009 F. Greening wrote to me and I replied:

FG: "I would say that Chandler's slight of hand is the implied notion that Newton's 3rd Law is universally applicable, even to a collapsing building. The fact is that when a building is collapsing by multiple floor failures the reaction force obviously fails to balance the downward force because the yield strength of the failing columns is being exceeded."

SJ: No. This is a blatant and fundamental error. I have caught many a student on the equivalent of this nonsense, as I taught Newtonian Mechanics for over 21 years. Newton's 3rd law is always applicable, even in the case you mention, Frank. The key is that the "equal and opposite forces" must act on DIFFERENT bodies. Suggest you consult a basic physics or mechanics text if you don't understand that. – Steven Jones

Later the same day, FG persists in his misunderstanding of Newton’s Laws and says:

FG: So, to recap: Newton’s Laws apply to the external forces acting between interacting bodies in closed systems. Newton’s 3rd Law does not apply to the internal forces causing an open-structured body to collapse in on itself.

At this point, after several scientific comments, physicist David Chandler replies to FG in such a way as to drive home the point:

DC: Bullsh*t!!! Total absolute bullsh*t!!!!!!!! I can't believe I'm reading this from someone who claims to be a scientist. You get an F in my class.

FG: "Newton's 3rd Law applies to bouncing billiard balls not the interiors of collapsing buildings".

DC: You are so... so... absolutely full of sh*t!!! …I charge $60 (USD) per hour for tutoring. I'll round this lesson off to 1 hour. Please send the check to David Chandler (address redacted).

David then proceeds with a detailed explanation of Newton’s Third Law, a tutorial. He concludes the tutorial with these cogent comments:

DC: Energy and Momentum did not come to destroy the law(s of Newton), they came to fulfill them. When you use concepts such as energy and momentum you are applying Newton's laws without knowing it. Within the confines of classical mechanics, which includes building demolitions, Newton's laws of motion are THE LAW. They are never, ever violated. If you apply concepts involving energy and momentum in such a way as to violate Newton's Laws, you are applying them incorrectly.

…If you want to see true insanity, turn a bunch of people loose in a physics discussion governed only by their intuition. What you get is a JREF forum.

FG’s response was not an admission of error exactly, but this:

FG: “Dear All,
Why all the fuss about Newtonian semantics?”

Humorous, I thought. At some point, a full display of this back-and-forth demonstrating Greening’s complete misunderstanding of Newton’s Third Law as it should apply to the Towers’ destruction along with my and especially David Chandler’s efforts to help FG understand would be valuable. Some of this exchange has already been posted on Newsvine as noted to me by Dr. Frank Legge, who wrote:

FL: Steve, you may be interested to know that Greening's lapse regarding Newton's third law has been exposed in Newsvine.

I should note that F. Greening is a co-author with Bazant on a paper supporting the official story for the collapse of the Towers, so FG’s misunderstanding of the Third Law is particularly relevant to the nonsense known as the “official story of 9/11”.

2) Discussion of the red/gray chips paper.

Also in the April-May time frame, there was a discussion between FG and authors of the paper “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”; find the April 2009 published article at this link:

IMO, certain deficiencies in Greening’s thinking became evident, such as his statement:

“The microspheres reported in the Harrit paper could at best be described as "iron-rich", with Al, Si and O always present. But let me remind you, this is also true for the magnetically separated microspheres found in incinerator ashes – they contain mostly Fe, Al, Si, and O.”

SJ response: “Dr. Farrer and Danny and I have looked at many of these post-DSC spheres, many do NOT contain Al. See for example Fig 21 in our paper:

Fig. (21). Spheroid found in post-DSC residue showing iron-rich sphere and the corresponding XEDS spectrum. The carbon peak must be considered indeterminate here since this sample was flashed with a thin carbon layer in order to preclude charging under the electron beam.

SJ response cont’d: “Look again at the data (above) -- there is no Al in evidence. Furthermore, the amounts of Si and Ca and especially S here [are] trivial. The melting points of iron and of iron oxide are both above 1200 C, yet the DSC reached only 700 C, insufficient to cause melting of iron or iron oxide.”

He finally admitted to some error on that point related to Fig. 21, as you may read.

The absence of ZINC in the red chip material (our paper, Fig. 7), in particular, implies that this is NOT primer paint used on the WTC – it appears that FG agrees with this point.

A number of FG’s straw-man arguments were also identified and dispelled. On May 11, 2009, I wrote to FG:

SJ: “Nor is your conflation of "thermate" with "nanothermite" valid. Nor did I EVER write or say that thermate alone would suffice to bring down the Towers, but rather wrote that explosives would be needed (in addition).”

During the discussion, I briefly expressed my hypothesis that nanothermite served as an igniting agent, as in the “super-thermite matches” described in our paper, to ignite more conventional explosives such as C4 or HMX, in the destruction of the WTC buildings. Thermate (sulfur plus thermite and possibly the form thermate-TH-3) was ALSO in evidence and probably intended to weaken critical steel members (e.g., residue/ material flowing with orange glow from the So. Tower just minutes before its collapse and the sulfidation of WTC steel reported in the FEMA report but ignored by NIST). Thermite incendiary without sulfur is not in evidence at the WTC to date.

But sulfur is NOT needed for the function of explosive nanothermite and would not be expected to appear in the red/gray chips. Reliable and robust super- or nano-thermite ignitors would each be ignited by an electrical pulse generated by a radio-receiver, in turn igniting shaped charges to cut steel, the sequence beginning near where the planes went in for the Towers and computer-controlled, so that the destruction wave would proceed via explosives in top-down sequence. Thus, this was no conventional (bottom first) controlled demolition, agreeing on this with B. Blanchard, but I never claimed it was! (For the Towers; the demolition of WTC7 appears to be bottom-first and more conventional.) The top-down destruction of the Towers in this model would doubtless require more explosives than would a conventional controlled demolition. Thermate (an incendiary, not an explosive) is not the “be all and end all” explanation (FG’s terminology), nor did I ever claim it was – I have consistently pointed to evidence that explosives were used in bringing down the Towers.

The “working hypothesis” above is a scientific hypothesis, that is, subject to change as further research data emerge. It is also possible (for example) that explosive nanothermite (not an incendiary) could have been used in SHAPED CHARGES, to cut through steel explosively (a use suggested in Fig. 1 of Miziolek AW, “Nanoenergetics: an emerging technology area of national importance.” Amptiac Spring 2002; 6(1): 43-48. Available from: http://www.p2pays.org/ref/34/33115.pdf .

I continued on 11 May 2009 to FG: “My main gripe with your soliloquy today is that it ignores the additional data collected by on-going experiments which I described to you -- the comparison we did of the DSC trace for paint vs. for red/gray chips, the controls we did for the quantification of elements (using known chemical compounds as controls), the TEM studies, the independent clip by researcher Mark B. showing the very rapid ignition of the red material accompanied by gas generation, (He also observes microsphere formation.) Why did you not comment on these points?”

I think you will find the discussion interesting and informative, and you get to read the emails as penned by Frank Greening, Dr. Legge, myself and others. You be the judge.

Thanks to "metamars" for encouraging this discussion and then posting the exchanges.

The big guys are making progress. We're getting to the point where it's so obvious it's impossible to deny. I've never seen Cheney look scared until recently. I like that people like DRG and others are getting other countries involved as this one is utterly occupied.

Notice how he referred to the towers being 'blown up' on 9/11 as opposed to being knocked down? (On Meet the Press). Of course this totally contradicts the official line..... I guess he's trying to imply that jet fuel caused the obvious explosions. Too bad the official FEMA report states that most of the fuel was expended in the initial fireball outside the building! And the rest was used up in the next 5 or so minutes. So if the buildings blew up it was not due to jet fuel. He backed himself into a corner there. Where was the reporter?

Cheney also refers only to KSM now in relation to 9/11, while never mentioning former poster boy mastermind OBL. Looks like tricky Dick's constant cries about how we will be hit again are to provide cover for his own guilt. And not just about torture. The one that smelt it dealt it.

Oh yes, they are scared. Witness the multiple recent news events about torture. Torture is used to intimidate the 9/11 Truth movement. The high criminals and their cover-up minions want us to think twice before going public with our knowledge. This strategy will fail. The campaign for 9/11 Truth is compelling because it is borne by a strong scientific foundation and mountains of video evidence. They fear the internet phenomenon of 9/11 Truth will spill over into the "real" world, but hundreds and thousands are waking up every month. The publication of nanothermate in WTC dust will go down in history. The elite controllers of money and information will try to intimidate the brave and confuse the sleeping; however, they are terrified of awakening the masses in the process. There could be nothing worse for their stinking world order.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

3) Anger those we are warring with, so as to instigate more violence, which can be used as further pretext for further war. There is a balance to this one, since they might not have wanted to publicize torture early on, due to public opinion in the US, but it remains a viable reason for engaging in torture and brutality.

4) Once in a blue moon, find real evidence about planned violence against the US or our allies, on the battlefield or at home, and then parade this evidence around saying, "See it works, torture works, " even though the warring was falsely generated in the first place.

5) (Problematic but interesting): try to find out if any prisoners have knowledge that could implicate perpetrators higher up, as financial sources, etc.

There are always plots, schemes and dissident groups that want to disrupt anything...

This is why there is Intel such as the CIA and all the other information agencies working all around the world...

The plot for 9/11 was allowed, if not nurtered, into reality while intel about it IN THIS COUNTRY was capped below actionable activity...

In THIS country the Pentagon could control all the information and classify it as "national security"...and the FBI handled and still controls all the forennsic evidence and the FAA base data.

HOWEVER...the HI PERPS had big trouble capping or stopping the information about the attacks in OTHER countries and in other organizations...

SO...just like the Patriot Act was created well before 9/11, and the anthrax attacks were pre calculated to get Leahey and Daschle out of the way, so to was the plan to use blatant torture up to and including death to shut foriegn mouths.

Tortuer and death all served as notice that if anyone speaks the way that the HI PERPS didn't like, or began to spill the beans about foreknowledge of 9/11, Uncle Sam would torture and kill them for doing so...

Bush even stated something along the lines of: "If we don't like you we will bomb you..." [I don't have the eact quote.]

The HI PERPS may not have cared who they arrested-abducted-bought from the streets to imprison...they just wanted to set an example and the corporate media helped spread the word...which the HI PERPS WANTED to be spread about.

So, most folks have the chronology of tortue and 9/11 BACKWARDS...

Torture was an important part of the foreplanning of the 9/11 psy-op and attacks put into place to control the flow of incrminating information that pointed towards the Pentagon and Team Cheney...

Please do not forget AA77 piloted by Chip Burlingame...its the modrnized "Operation Northwoods" of the 9/11 attacks...which I now call: "The 9/11 War Games Attack Scenario"...

Same foreplanning here too...

The HI PERPS HAD to get people thinking THEIR WAY in the emotional horror of the attacks themselves...couldn't have any foriegn sources telling a different story in public.

in her answer to the student questioning her, talked about the Twin Towers being 80 stories tall. Most of the people who died were in floors above the 80th in both buildings. It made me wonder if this was a freudian slip, or unconscious block of what she was really involved in. It also makes me wonder if she was told beforehand that people would be able to escape - most were, but not above the 78th floor in the South Tower and 90th floor in the North Tower.

Everything that happens - everything that is said - has meaning. This principle is expressed in many spiritual themes. In the New Testament this is expressed in the phrases "not even a sparrow falls without His knowing" and "even the hairs of your head are numbered." (I paraphrased both of those quotes, being too lazy to look them up - but I'm sure they are pretty close).

Now, returning to Newton's third law - the biblical phrase: "as a person soweth, so also shall he reap" is an expression of action and reaction. And "the judgement that ye mete shall also be meted unto you" (again roughly paraphrased) is once again action and reaction.

The point (I guess) is that the Universe is ordered - albeit in a veiled way.

So --- all of these "slips of the tongue" have an origin and a meaning. Exactly what the meaning of these slips are is beyond my knowing. But I sure can see that there are an awful lot of these "slips" happening:

Rumsfeld: "shot down the plane over Pennsylvania" and "the missile that hit the pentagon"
are a couple of the classics.

Bush: "Our enemies never stop thinking of ways to harm our people, and neither do we."

Bush: "operatives placing the explosives high enough so people could not escape."

Veterans of 9/11 research are familiar with these quotes. Apologies to newbies for not documenting them.

Anyway ----- I believe that in this ordered Universe - Rice's referring to the towers as being 80 stories high does have meaning - though I don't know what that meaning is. This seems like a totally impossible mistake for someone as familiar with the WTC as Rice to make. It is like an American saying that the Washington Monument is a dome. It is very, very weird.

they are not always suitable for the analysis of a problem. Even though action and reaction may be equal, in modeling the problem, one may not have all that information. I think other methods were developed in the 18th and early 19th century after Newton's death to tackle some of the more intractable problems. D'Alembert introduced the principle of virtual velocities, and this was perfected by Lagrange. Then there was Hamilton who somehow made the picture even more perfect. I think that Newton's laws were left in the dust by these newer formulations of classical mechanics. The question is, how can they be applied to understand the collapses of the World Trade Center towers. Somehow, I think the use of Newton's three laws is a bit old fashioned. I have never been able to master Lagrangian mechanics, but maybe some of you geniuses out there know how to apply it to the problem at hand. Maybe this was what Greening was getting at. Of course action and reaction apply within the building, but we don't have that information, so it may not be particularly useful in analyzing the problem. What we need is a good model of the entire process.

We have MORE than enough Evidence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The CONSTITUTION is NOT going to "collapse" into pulverized dust no matter how much thermate/explosives or planes they throw at it

Unsupported comments to the effect of this and this left Newton's laws in the dust are not helpful and are simply incorrect.

In the paper "The Missing Jolt" we showed what the minimum energy would have to be to continue collapse with equal and opposite forces applied to both sides of an initial impact in a natural collapse, in accordance with Newton's third law. This allows the calculation of the kinetic energy loss and then velocity loss which manifests itself as a deceleration. Interestingly, there is no velocity loss at any point in the fall of the upper block in the North Tower, which is measureable for 114 feet before it is obscured by dust and smoke.

A velocity loss is necessary to transfer the energy and since the lower columns could handle several times the load above them the load would also need to be amplified. Load amplification can only occur if the deceleration is greater than 1g and in the case of the towers would have had to be at least several g's. However, there is no deceleration, so there was no amplified load and the collapse continuation could not have been caused by natural means.

FG was actually arguing, as he said more than once, that Newton's Third Law does NOT APPLY apply to the internal forces, just to the external forces -- see the direct quotes above. (Admittedly, having the full exchange is helpful here.) E.g., FG: "So, to recap: Newton’s Laws apply to the external forces acting between interacting bodies in closed systems. Newton’s 3rd Law does not apply to the internal forces causing an open-structured body to collapse in on itself."

Chandler correctly corrects FG -- and SnowCrash is also right -- Newton's 3rd Law ALWAYS applies in such cases, for both internal and external forces. (The only exception is relativistic dynamics, which Chandler did explain, but which is not relevant here.)

Now -- can you find the error (from the point of view of a correct understanding of Newton's third law) where FG has both the "action" and "reaction" forces acting on the SAME object? (Note that in this argument, the first quoted above, he is not saying the 3rd law is not SUITABLE, but he applies the law incorrectly.)

I.e., if you print it out, first, then walk it over. Also, be aware that not all physicists know about DSC's and XEDS, e.g. In other words, even Ph.D. physicists may not have much to say about the paper, unless they delve into the requisite background, further. It'll probably better to focus on physical chemists (or chemical physicists - I don't know if there's any difference) and materials scientists and engineers, at least initially.

>>Also, be aware that not all physicists know about DSC's and XEDS, e.g. In other words, even Ph.D. physicists may not have much to say about the paper, unless they delve into the requisite background, further.

It seems best to just spread it far and wide. It's true that many will be intimidated by the methods, but they may then forward to someone else who may know.

Walking it over would be great, if people can do that. Next best is sending a hardcopy in the mail.

Would this possible? It seems like the ultimate way to prove you have unexploded thermitic material would be to explode some of it. This would seem to be conclusive proof that explosives are still contained within. Assuming it's possible and there are enough samples. And that it's done at the ideal moment to be scientifically documented. Blow up some dust! Is this a dumb idea?

A small (I believe oxyacetylene) torch is used to ignite a red/gray chip. It indeed ignites and 'jumps' away. It's really best to read the paper in order to get a full picture of what is happening in the video. I hope the video makes people enthusiastic to do so.

The epic of "9/11 Truth" is quite an adventure, and we all are writing the story. In this epic are an absurd array of characters (e.g. F.G. , Bazant, NIST) who defend the official story with downright silliness. I have to laugh at some of the lunacy which they defend with even more lunacy.

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Mathew 7:2

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Sir Issac Newton

You don't have to be religious to see the brilliance and universal applicability of the above into all realms - material as well as spiritual.

You only repeat a joke, if you yourself think it is funny. You only use fear to control others, if you yourself are controlled by fear. How else would you know that it works?

Greening lives in the same Universe as everyone else - the Universe of equal and opposite action and reaction. I have no idea what he is reacting to, but whatever it is, it doesn't seem like it would contribute to peaceful sleep. He is still alive. He can still be a hero of truth. In fact, he is perfectly positioned to be a great hero. I wonder if he realizes that.

What we have here, to my mind, are two spiritual and ethical antipodes. We have a man, Steven Jones, who has faced down a threat from a powerful and malign source, and refused to accept a bribe from that same source. At the other extreme we have a person, Frank Greening, who started out apparently neutral about 9/11, then suddenly took the side of the Official pushed version. I am curious as to the etiology of his alteration.

But to zmzmzm, I like your attitude and I particularly like your conclusion about Greening's chance for redemption. Which universe Greening lives in may depend on how we define universes. Peace to you. And much thanks to Professor Jones.

Perhaps a problem set for high school physics classes could be formulated and sent around the country. Let the students contend with the results after working out the problems themselves, and discussing the conclusions in class. It's their world now.

I didn't even mention 9/11. I just said that there was a physics question that I would like to discuss with them. Neither of them answered my email. What ordinary people in the US do not realize is that they have been successfully terrorized. This is a tough nut to crack, as a terrorized person will go into denial as a natural self-defense. How does one fight nature?

That having been said, I like your idea 7man. Now how do we make it work? Maybe David Chandler (or someone from AE911 who is reading this) could create the physics questions in a high-school appropriate manner. Then they could post the question on the various truth sites, and we could send them out to our local high schools and local newspapers. This seems to me to be simple, practical and it will cost nothing.

FG: "I would say that Chandler's slight of hand is the implied notion that Newton's 3rd Law is universally applicable, even to a collapsing building. The fact is that when a building is collapsing by multiple floor failures the reaction force obviously fails to balance the downward force because the yield strength of the failing columns is being exceeded."

How can he be wrong on such a fundamental level.Forget about Newtons third law let us embrace Greening,s 1st law, "Action and reaction are equal and opposite except for when they are not,including bank holidays and every other wednesday".

This is just a hypothesis - but: Perhaps this is his way of letting the world know that the government "explanation" of the collapses is a fairy tale.

But, he is doing it in such a way that (he hopes) will keep him from ending up like Barry Jennings.

If he were simply to do a public 180, he would be immediately silenced (one way or the other).

The man is saying that Newton was wrong. What more can we ask of him, without asking him to sign his own death warrant? He is in too deep, too long to get out easily.

Robby B - you are a genius for keeping the simple and obvious - simple and obvious. The idea that we all have to have physics laboratories, expensive equipment, and years of training to see through this fraud is preposterous. All Newton needed was an apple. (No offense Professor Jones, Neils Harrit etc. --- you guys are the greatest --- but you know what I mean).

Professor Jones realized that WTC7 was professionally demolished when he saw the video of it coming straight down into its own footprint - just like the rest of us ordinary folk. The lab work and the science came AFTER his common sense realization and conviction. (Please correct me if I am wrong Professor). If people were not terrorized out of their common sense, they wouldn't need the lab work and all the time it is taking while the wars go on and on and on.

How about a moment of silence and appreciation (in our own hearts) for Barry Jennings and his family?

I have a friend who can't seem to post on this site. Since he is sincere, I would like to give his ideas a chance to be heard and responded to. I sent him Chandler's 3 minute video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG2y50Wyys4

I also referred him to this blog. Here is his response:

"The fundamental error Chandler makes in this video is that the "unloading" of the upper floors' weight on the lower half only occurs until the the upper floors impact it. The impact, if you want to use the "block" analogy , is much greater that the original static load and it impacts on only one floor in this simple model. If this implact is greater than the floors ability to withstand it (it's dynamic load rating) then the floor will come apart. (I'm not arguing the model, as it's kind of silly, just that even if you try to use it, his conclusions ignore this point.)

Try this simple math - let the upper 13 floors weigh one pound each, so the weight pressing down on the "lower block" is 13 pounds on 9/10/2001. The detached upper block accelerates on 9/11/2991 for 12 (distance between floors) feet at 18 feet per second (Chandler's video) so the terminal velocity of the block is roughly10 feet per second. F=1/2 MV^2, so the thirteen blocks exert an impact of (13*10*10)/2=650 lbs on the top floor of the block. If this is greater than the design load of the floor - or its weakest links, then it will come apart at those points. Note the huge difference between 13 and 650 in terms of load. The next floor impact is even worse as the constant acceleration means that the velocity is greater (from Chandler) and so the force is even greate by the SQUARE of the velocity (and the mass might be up by a bit too).

Greenings point is that the block analogy is too simple to be of forensic use, and not that Newton's laws are incorrect, just misapplied. If you look at the videos of the collapses you'll see that they are complex events and cannot be accurately modelled in this way. Sometimes people have done what I did in the paragraph above just to illustrate that the forces are much greater than intuition might lead one to believe, not to prove that this is what happened.

David Chandler is not a physicist using any definition I know of. He does, perhaps, teach high school physics but has no professional qualification in the discipline in direct contradiction to what the article (blog) says. Maybe they got carried away.."

The Missing Jolt paper at the Journal of 911 Studies and see what he says then.

In the paper we show that there was no amplified load, that your friend seems to believe occurred. This is done by calculating what the kinetic energy loss should have been due to the amount of energy required to collapse the columns on the first floors on either side of an initial impact. The velocity loss can then be calculated as it is part of the kinetic energy and it can then be shown what the recovery window would be to get back to pre-impact velocity. Take a look at the graphs in the paper and you will see that there is never any loss of velocity by the upper block, it just keeps increasing. Without a deceleration and velocity loss no impulse and amplified load could have occurred.

“So the thirteen blocks exert an impact of (13*10*10/2)=650lbs on the top floor of the block.”
This is incorrect on several levels. Most importantly, the force exerted by the upper block is entirely dependent upon the strengths within the lower block and the upper block. At the instantaneous moment of impact the force will be zero, and will rise rapidly to a maximum value which will be the failure load of the uppermost columns in the lower section or the failure load of the lowermost columns in the upper section, whichever is the smaller. That is Newtons law - equal and opposite forces.
Secondly, the equation used above is not a force equation but rather an energy equation. The total energy expenditure is a function of the forces applied to each and every column, or other piece of the structure, and the distances over which these forces are applied. This will apply to all forces throughout the structure, from the antennae to the bedrock. Limiting the analysis to only the columns of the upper storey of the lower section is nothing more than a device used by the likes of Bazant and Greening. Only by using this false analysis incorporating their false notions of Newtons laws can they attempt to justify the towers’ destruction.
The total energy expended in the impact will be reflected in a relative deceleration of the upper block, because it is the kinetic energy of the upper block that is the source of the energy. This is the point made in the paper “The missing jolt”
Drive a car into a fence. The car will be slowed by an amount which will be a measure of the forces and energies required to destroy the fence and cause damage to the car. Drive the car into a wall and the car will be slowed by a greater amount, reflecting the greater forces and energies required to destroy the wall and cause greater damage to the car. Drive the car into a granite cliff face and it will be stopped entirely. In this case all of the kinetic energy of the car will be used in the collision, both on the car and its contents and on the cliff.
Please try this at home Frank. If your analysis is correct then the car will stay completely intact until the granite cliff is destroyed. I'm sure you will be totally uninjured. Happy motoring.
gordon ross

"Greenings point is that the block analogy is too simple to be of forensic use, and not that Newton's laws are incorrect, just misapplied."

No, his point was this:

FG: So, to recap: Newton’s Laws apply to the external forces acting between interacting bodies in closed systems. Newton’s 3rd Law does not apply to the internal forces causing an open-structured body to collapse in on itself.

I find this sort of behavior with debunkers all the time, and there is absolutely nothing "sincere" about it.

Lastly, he managed to completely miss Chandler's point. Chandler's video uses the physics toolkit and Newton's third law to demonstrate that the amount of force exerted by the upper 'block' onto the lower block is 36% of the weight of the upper block. This means it is exerting MUCH LESS FORCE than it would exert if it were AT REST.

Your friend, on the other hand, tries to show with a crude example that the forces exerted on the lower block by the upper block are greater when the upper block is dropped on it.

DUH.

The acceleration measurement Chandler makes proves that the forces the upper block SHOULD exert when DROPPED, AREN'T EXERTED. WHY? Because STUFF IS MOVED OUT OF THE WAY. Your friend calculates the THEORY, but doesn't measure WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong here, because IF I AM NOT, THERE IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM; and if everybody would know that, there would a revolution before dawn, so to speak.

Newton's third law always applies, except in certain areas of quantum physics. In short, that means, Newton's third law always applies. That also implies something else. It implies that the so-called 'sledgehammer' or 'pile driver' gets destroyed by the lower block, until there is no pile driver left.

But there is yet another problem: the upper block disintegrates, so there is no pile driver at all.

I'm not a professor or a doctor, but I have no particular patience with hack science, especially when combined with character assassination.

I haven’t fully read all the relevant papers, so I only have an overview of the crush-down (pile-driver) theory, but I have a question which I haven’t seen addressed anywhere.

The crush-down theory supposes that the top portion of the north tower remained as a solid block, that it crushed its way through the bulk of the tower, and then disintegrated when it hit ground-level. This theory fails on so many angles, but I want to ask specifically about the spire.

Video and photographic evidence clearly shows that parts of the core, up to around two-thirds of the original height, remained standing for a couple of seconds after the main collapse.

How does the crush-down theory account for the residual core given that it requires the block to have remained intact all the way to ground-level? Did the spire pierce the block, or maybe it stepped to one side for a few moments before jumping back in to position again.

The fact that 50 to 60 story high portions of the central core remain standing for several seconds, in the collapses of both twin towers, does pour cold water on the crush down (pile driver) theory of Bazant and the NIST. What many don't know is that it was only the 23 inner core columns which remained standing, and none of the significantly larger outer 24 core columns. This was brought to light by Muhammad Columbo in 2007 and enabled mechanical engineer Gordon Ross (who I was glad to see join the conversation here with his post above) to be the first to fully dissect just how the towers were demolished.

The reality is that the 24 outer core columns and the corners of the perimeters were taken out to effect the demolitions of the twin towers. Gordon does a very good job of explaining this on the website he took the time to create, for just this purpose at http://gordonssite.tripod.com/id2.html.

I think the spire is the simplest way of debunking the crush-down theory; especially if you’re talking to non-physicists.

My understanding of the word “theory” is that it is an attempt to explain something. With the crush-down model failing to explain clear, visual evidence, it doesn’t qualify as a theory. At best, it is merely a model of something we know didn’t happen.

The problem is not whether 20 stories of building mass falling from the 90th floor could or could not demolish the 20th floor and many below it. Of course it could with that much momentum. If this notion was that of the friend you speak of then he or she is not looking at the problem realistically.

The real issue is whether or not the collapse had enough momentum to continue after the initial fall and one could probably even say in the first five stories of the fall, given the strength of the columns in the twin towers. It does not appear to be so. Then there is the additional problem of no evidence for the necessary mechanism to transfer the required kinetic energy (an impulse) as the upper block does not decelerate for the 114 feet it's fall was measureable. Has your friend commented on that problem for the present official story?

I was attempting to point out, by way of what I hoped would be an amusing illustration, that the bottom floor of the top block was weaker than the top floor of the bottom block, and that any collision between the two blocks resulting in destruction, would be more likely to destroy the lowest floor of the upper less robustly built block than the highest floor of the lower more robustly built block. Thus the falling 90th floor would destroy itself in a contest with the stationary heavier and more robustly built 85th floor. (leaving the 86th - 89th floors out of my little story as they would seem to be too chaotic to describe). This would leave the 91st floor to do battle with the 85th floor, and this contest would again favor the 85th floor whose advantage over the 91st floor would be even greater than its structural advantage over the 90th floor. Even if the 85th floor and 90th floor were to mutually destroy one another, the next contest, pitting the even less robustly built 91st floor against the even more robustly built 84th floor would be even more uneven in favoring the the 84th.
In this manner, the ever lighter and lighter-built upper floors would, one by one, destroy themselves against the 84th floor -- or if that one failed - against the even more robustly built 83rd floor. (acutally I would imagine that the structural steel would not be different for every single floor - but would probably be the same for a few stories, before it changed its dimensions).

My illustration (which I see didn't pass the Szamboti test) was a deliberate gross exaggeration pitting the lowest floor of the upper block (which I arbitrarily called the 90th floor) against the 20th floor - which would be so far down as to make the dilfference in its robustness combared to that of the 90th floor so extreme - that it would be beyond obvious that the 90th floor would lose a contest with it. And of course the 91st would lose by an even greater margin etc. until the upper block would be completely destroyed leaving the 20th floor and those below it intact.

I see that I have confused the actual situation with my gross exaggeration. The idea was to make an amusing illustrative story for those whose eyes glaze over from too much "technical stuff."

I can imagine making a cartoon out of this (under the watchful eyes of Szamboti, Chandler etc.) who would reign me in when I went overboard. I know a lot of people just freak out from technical descriptions.

Now I see that my friend has emailed me, so I will see what he has to say, and post it (unless he asks me not to).

As you now understand you took things a little too far by going with a 70 story drop of a 20 story section onto the lowest 20 stories of the building, as the huge amount of momentum from that 800 foot drop comes into play.

However, your thoughts on the upper block losing a battle of attrition with the lower block is accurate though, when looked at with the amount of momentum involved in one and two story continuous collapses. Once the rigid upper block is completely destroyed a continued collapse is highly improbable as loose material will not deliver the type of impulse necessary. This is what Anders Bjorkman discusses as his contribution to showing the collapses to be impossible.

"Pass this along if you wish. Or I'd be happy to hear directly from these folks at ...." (he then gives his email address which I deleted as I think this is an instructive public discussion).

My friend continues:

"Why not start here regarding the third response.

Quote #1

"Greenings point is that the block analogy is too simple to be of forensic use, and not that Newton's laws are incorrect, just misapplied."

No, his point was this:

FG: So, to recap: Newton’s Laws apply to the external forces acting between interacting bodies in closed systems. Newton’s 3rd Law does not apply to the internal forces causing an open-structured body to collapse in on itself.

I've read this now four times, and I think that my statement about Greening point is completely correct. To whit - that it's really pointless to discuss "blocks' and closed systems when you have a more complex matter at hand. Apparently, someone wants to take Greenings statement literally " Newton’s 3rd Law does not apply" and with no context. I can understand this argumentation. I'll stick to my point of view that you can't just do a simple calculation the way DC does in a complex situation involving "an open-structured body" and that this is what Greening is obviously saying. I think that everybody who's ever taken any course in physics knows that, in the world we normally observe, Newton's three laws of motion apply. However, how to apply them in a complex situation is the heart of their discussion as I read it.

Quote 2 - My information about Chandler:

David has a BS from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA (IPS major–independent program of studies with emphasis in physics and engineering); MA in education from Claremont Graduate University; MS in mathematics from Cal Poly, Pomona and has taught Physics/Mathematics/Astronomy at K-12 and Jr. college levels. He is also and author and served formerly on the editorial board of The Physics Teacher, an AAPT journal. David is also an active designer and inventor of educational materials emphasizing quantitative visualization.

is where I got my information. All I can figure is that the dude disagrees with my definition of scientist - someone with a degree in the discipline who does scientific research in that discipline as more than a hobby. DC seems to be to be an educator and I continue to think that it's a distortion of the term to call him a physicist.

(I also note, that I am called accused of "lying" by someone who apparently could read my intent using the internet. Maybe you could ask him how he figured that out. Just being wrong is bad enough!)

I will also stick with my overall analysis which is that once the block (if you want to keep using this analogy) hits the lower portion, load (force) on the lower portion must increase as it is now in contact with the lower portion. For a brief amount of time, it will be higher, but if it were to come to rest it would end up back at 13 pounds. If Im reading his point correctly, then somehow "Because STUFF IS MOVED OUT OF THE WAY"obviates this. If that's true, then I certainly don't understand the point. I do understand, and maybe this is the point I'm missing, that the continued acceleration of the top at less than one gee means that "something" is being destroyed and that energy is being lost, so the eventual blow is less than if it were in free fall. As I 'm sure you know, I'd appreciate a better elucidation of DC's point since I am certain that I disagree with the idea that the top NEVER exerts more than .36 g on the bottom which is true only during the "crush" phase."

The Missing Jolt paper goes into the energies involved and the lack of deceleration which would have been necessary to deliver the required energies. It doesn't sound like your friend read it before responding as he doesn't address it's points and continues to act as though there was a deceleration and amplified load.

While David Chandler also mentions the lack of deceleration, it is only briefly during the video, and your friend may have missed it.

Wanted to briefly respond to that: If your friend takes his calculations and applies them, he should expect deceleration. Without deceleration, there can be no such force exerted.
If no such force is exerted, then yes, "something" is being destroyed and moved out of the way.

And (quote):
I am certain that I disagree with the idea that the top NEVER exerts more than .36 g on the bottom which is true only during the "crush" phase."

Sure, you are certain...because this line of reasoning most likely proves (even without need for explosive residu) that a source of energy other than the falling block is responsible for destroying the lower & upper block. You simply have no choice but to ignore the empirical data if you want to believe the official lie. This is however a psychological, and not a physics problem.

But I'll leave it to the experts, Gordon Ross and Tony Szamboti who both do excellent work, and I need not add. I've simply watched Chandler's clips repeatedly until I got it. Some of it is, as he says, counterintuitive, and most of all inconvenient. His approach corners you, as he cornered NIST, forcing them to change the report on WTC 7 and admit free fall occurred. Add up all the other evidence and the implications...are nauseating.

I have one question so far. The force of impact may be great, but if the time during which this force acts is small, then even a large force would not diminish the velocity by much. If the force at which failure occurs is reached rather quickly, the velocity would not be noticeably diminished. Do I have that right, or am I mistaken?

To understand what an impulse really is doing it is probably best to look at the impulse-momentum equation

Force = mass x change in velocity/duration of impulse

which can also be stated as

Force x duration of impulse = mass x change in velocity.

In other words the force times the duration of the impulse equals the change in momentum..

The change in velocity with respect to time is actually acceleration or deceleration, depending on whether it is positive or negative. The shorter the duration for a given velocity change of a specific mass the greater the force applied. This is because the acceleration or deceleration is greater and F = ma is larger.

The impulse must provide a sufficient force to reach the yield stress in the columns but it is better to use energy required to collapse the columns as force alone doesn't provide the complete picture. It takes work or force times distance to collapse the columns, not just the force. Energy is the ability to do work. An impulse transfers the kinetic energy and the force it provides acts over a distance due to that energy. Knowing the energy requirement to collapse the columns allows one to determine the kinetic energy loss necessary and then find the velocity loss needed to effect that for a given mass of the impacting object.

The velocity loss of the falling initial upper block mass, necessary to perform a given amount of work on the columns of the first floors on either side of the impact, is constant, as the mass is constant and the energy requirement is constant and kinetic energy is KE = 1/2MV**2.

The thing to remember here is that the amount of energy needing to be transferred by the impulse, to just overcome the strength of the columns and accelerate the first impact floor from rest, was a large percentage of the kinetic energy of the upper block, and the velocity loss required for just these two minimum tasks was over 75% of the pre-impact velocity. The work done for the Missing Jolt paper affirms the earlier work done by Gordon Ross, where he looked at several other energy drains, in addition to the column deformation and first impact floor acceleration, and concluded that the collapse should have arrested.

In reality, there is little to no evidence for a natural collapse initiation to have even occurred but that is another story.

The point added to the debate/discussion by The Missing Jolt paper, on the issue of these catastrophic collapses, is that just to perform the minimum tasks of collapsing the columns on the first two floors and accelerating the first impact floor from rest, a natural collapse would have required a very large velocity loss by the upper block for the energy to be provided, and there is no evidence of that velocity loss in the measureable fall of the upper block of WTC 1. It never decelerates in the 114 feet for which it's fall can be measured.

Here I go again with my analogies --- but maybe this is a helpful way to look at this for those of us who prefer experiential examples to mathematical equations:

Those of us who have been high up in modern skyscrapers know the feeling you get in your stomach when the elevator begins a rapid descent.

I assume that if you were standing on a scale on the elevator floor, the needle would register you as weighing less at the moment the elevator begins a rapid and sudden descent. Is this correct?

My second question is: "as the elevator continues its descent" would the needle on the scale go back to your correct weight, or would it continue to register you as being lighter than you actually are?

What would you register on the scale if the cable broke and the elevator descended at free fall acceleration?

The reason I pose these questions is that more people can relate to being in descending elevators than can relate to videos of the collapse of the towers.

Is this sort of imagery useful? (cleaned up of course by Szamboti or Ross or Jones or someone who really knows his/her stuff)

The bottom 90 stories - being blown to dust by an additional energy source is analgous to the central cable that holds up and elevator snapping. If that cable snaps, the elevator falls at close to free fall, being slowed down only by air resistance and friction with non-weight- bearing guides.

The top block is analagous to a person standing in the elevator, when the floor gives way beneath him/her.

Since we all can feel that we "unweight" when an elevator begins an abrupt descent, we can - from our own experience - understand that the top block would exert less pressure on the bottom block than it does at rest - were the bottom block to be suddenly removed by an external energy source. This imagery makes it easy to see why Chandler's illustration of the top block exerting less force on the bottom block than it does when at rest - makes sense. We exert less force on the elevator floor when it is dropping beneath us.

Perhaps my imagery needs a bit of cleaning up - but here is my point: The technical arguments - no matter how good - no matter how air-tight and irrefutable - do not penetrate the minds of the general populace. The great majority of people will not even look at, let alone take the time to try to understand the technical arguments. Nor are they trained to understand the technical arguments even if they do take time to look at them.

Ask 1000 people whether they think Steven Jones or Frank Greening is correct. You will be lucky if even one of them has a clue what you are talking about.

So - even if my imagery is not very good - I think my point might be worth considering . And that point is that simple imagery - that relates to common experience, is needed if we are to break through the wall of denial and disinterest.

If the elevator drops or climbs at constant speed, you exert the same force on the elevator floor as you would when it's stationary. So I guess it depends on the way the elevator is programmed: when and for how long does it accelerate/decelerate during the journey from floor to floor. During those moments you may feel a bit funny, as your body resists the elevator's accel/deceleration.

I would like to answer your questions here in words that would be easy for everyone to understand, but I don't have the time for it right now.

Snowcrash pretty much hit the core of the issue on the funny sensation occurring only during acceleration and decelerations. It does not happen at rest or at constant vertical or horizontal speed.

What you have to remember is that all objects at rest are actually being decelerated at the rate of 1g by the object supporting them.

This might be a good project for someone like yourself to work on to put it in very easy to understand terms. I would suggest you start with all three of Newton's laws. The first being the law of inertia, the second F = ma, and the third for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Wikepedia has a pretty good expose' on them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_laws_of_motion

You know where to find my e-mail address and I would be glad to review whatever you come up with.

Greening's new objection is essentially moot for two reasons. First is that the lower columns were stronger in proportion to the greater mass they needed to carry, and second, there is no natural energy transfer mechanism, as the upper block never decelerates.

The real point, as you say, is: "In reality, there is little to no evidence for a natural collapse initiation to have even occurred but that is another story." It's another story, but it is THE story.

Since we really don't know the condition of the six floors that were damaged in Buiding 1, I think it is hard to come up with any assumptions about their strength. The best assumption, of course is that it would not collapse in the first place, and it didn't for over an hour. But when calculating the resistance of the damaged structures to the weight or the collapse of the intact block above, there is a lot of uncertainty. With Ross's analysis, at least he knew that the floors below were undamaged, and could make his calculations accordingly.

The collapse in WTC 1 initiated at the 98th floor, which had little aircraft impact damage, as only about five feet of the starboard wing tip hit at that level.

The 97th story did not suffer much damage either as the fuselage hit was below it. The wings could not have gotten to the central core as even the NIST analysis shows they would have been fully shredded by the reinforced concrete floors after already being heavily damaged by the perimeter columns and spandrels.

The 99th floor had no aircraft impact damage whatsoever.

We also know that the NIST has no physical evidence of high enough temperatures on the columns which would reduce their strength.

The energy analysis we did was for the 97th and 99th floor columns and it can be shown that it is highly improbable that any more than ten percent of the strength of the columns on these floors could have been removed due to damage and fire. Ten percent does not affect the fact that a serious jolt and velocity loss would have had to occur for a natural collapse to continue after a collision between the 99th and 97th floors. Even with a ten percent strength reduction the velocity loss would have still been about 70% of the pre-impact velocity for just the minimum tasks described in my post above.

Irrespective of the qualifications of David Chandler, we know that Greening is not a physicist nor has he to my knowledge ever claimed to be one. So why is this subject relevant? Because it is illustrative of the convuluted thinking displayed by those who accept the official story. To paraphrase your friend, "I doubt David Chandler because under some definitions he may be regarded as something other than a physicist, yet I will support Greening even though he cannot be regarded as a physicist under any definition." The convoluted thinking is evident throughout the writings of those who accept the official story. They attempt to place strictures upon one side of the argument yet ignore them within their own arguments. They ask for supporting evidence, but when it is produced, they ignore it, while producing none of their own.
In this argument this convoluted thinking can be seen very clearly.
Your friend said. "The impact, if you want to use the "block" analogy , is much greater that the original static load and it impacts on only one floor in this simple model. "
This is the sleight of hand first displayed by Bazant and copied by Greening and others. Your friend is not the first to be fooled into following this blinkered analysis
The block does not impact on only one floor.
The analysis can only have relevance if regarded as being either, between the entire upper block and the entire lower block, or as being only between the lowest storey of the upper block and the uppermost storey of the lower block. Framing the argument to say that the impact concerns the whole upper block but only one storey of the lower block, is a device. Why not say that one storey of the upper block hit the entire lower section?
The fact of the matter is that the mass of the roof could not affect the lower section without first compressing all of the columns between the roof and the lower section.
Greening knows this. I have told him myself, years ago. He was unable to answer the point then, so ignored it. His inability and ignorance continues.

"Apparently, I do not exist. According to a thread on the JREF forum, no one by the name of Gordon Ross has been born in Dundee since the latter part of the 19th Century. This came as quite a shock to me and no doubt will also surprise my father, who it seems has laboured for all his life under the delusion that he is also called Gordon Ross and was born in Dundee. My Great Uncle Gordon passed away several years ago and has thus been spared the trauma of discovering that he also did not exist.

In this article I will deal with some of the responses to my work as presented on this web site and elsewhere. At the end I will, in time, list some of the favourable comments, but firstly I will deal with the criticisms. Please forgive me for dealing with the easy ones first, but when such inviting targets present themselves, it is difficult not to take advantage, and they do provide some very welcome light relief. The JREF forum, a scary Twilight Zone kind of place where some strange fictions pass for facts, takes the prize for the most ludicrous assertions available. The "fact" presented there regarding the absence of any Gordon Ross in Dundee's register of births, would make me at least 120 years old, and I must admit that as I read through the site, I did begin to feel every day of that extended life span. So what was their explanation for my existence, or more correctly, my non-existence? According to the evidence presented there, I am actually Professor Jones masquerading as someone else."

Your argument does a lot of sense to a non-mechanical/structural engineer like me. I'm referring to:

The block does not impact on only one floor.
The analysis can only have relevance if regarded as being either, between the entire upper block and the entire lower block, or as being only between the lowest storey of the upper block and the uppermost storey of the lower block. Framing the argument to say that the impact concerns the whole upper block but only one storey of the lower block, is a device. Why not say that one storey of the upper block hit the entire lower section?

I interpret this in the sense that it is unwise to see floors as separate entities when it comes to load carrying and collapse resistance.

However, when the other side constructs this argument, perhaps they mean: "The bigger the hammer, the bigger the damage to the surface it impacts"

So when kinetic energy is proportional to mass, doesn't the potential of breaking floor connections increase proportional to the mass impacting those connections? Is this why the idea of the top block vs. just one bottom floor is advanced? Is there a difference between columns and bolts when viewing this problem?

To a layman like me, the concept of load transfer downwards through columns is more self-evident than the transfer of loads from bolts to ...elsewhere. Of course, when bolts in the lower 'block' can snap, then bolts in the upper block can snap too.....just thinking out loud a bit.

It seems Greening has now thrown Bazant overboard due to the exposure of the lack of deceleration of the upper block of WTC 1. Below are his own words from tonight, in a response to me, which I wouldn't dare try to paraphrase.

Frank Greening said:

"However, if you make precise observations of the actual collapse you find a s-m-o-o-t-h drop vs. time curve. So what does this mean?

You say it means a controlled demolition. I say hold your horses! Not so fast ...........

It could simply mean that the continuously acting resistive force provides a better description of the collapse than the "jolt" model. Why would the initial motion be exponential? How could the collapse be so smooth? Tony, I agree with DBB and Hambone, tilting is the answer"

My reply here is based on the premise that Tony is trying to discredit the official NIST explanation through his paper by claiming that there should have been bumpy motion recorded on the video from Etienne Sauret which he has used. Here's my skeptical reaction to what he wrote:

We discover that in our frame-by-frame version of the Sauret video 1 pixel = 0.88 feet.

The question we need to consider is whether this resolution is sufficient for Tony to make his case. To prove that it is, he makes the actual events conform to a simple collapse model. This lets him draw a conclusion about how long the deceleration phase should have been and how it can be measured. However, the actual events were much more chaotic than the model he uses. This means that he actually doesn't demonstrate that his propositon has forensic merit to the claim that gravity caused the collapse. If he introduces the actual chaos of the event then he can't model it. So, it's really a problem which can't be solved by this video, I'm afraid. (I can't model it either.)

Second, in converting the video from analog to digital he has introduced some additional degree of digital sampling error. Since I don't know exactly what he did, I can't comment further except to say that this cannot improve the actual resolving ability of any analysis, and so the 88 feet resolution is not a substantiated claim, it's just a measurement of what he has on the video. You also have the problem of deinterlacing the video when digitizing it which introduces further error. He never proves that he can actually resolve down to .88 feet, just measures what HE SHOULD be able to resolve if everything was perfect.

Third, you have the problem of faster and faster speed of the collapse with regards to the 30 frames per second. That is, once you exceed 30 feet per second you can't resolve a .88 foot as he claims because the minimum fall is one foot per frame (.33 milliseconds). He actually seems to make this worse in his choice to graph only every 5 frames of 167 milliseconds. So, only the first couple of seconds are useful at all, I think that the third second is useless but I'm too lazy right now to do the arithmetic.

Fourth, he doesn't take into consideration where the collapsing is occuring within the upper and lower blocks. The motion may be seen to be smooth at the top, but that might be due to the way the collapse proceeds which is from the bottom of the block upward. The entire block doesn't have to behave rigidly as seems to be the assumption he has made.

Finally, how does he even know that the original video was taken 30 frames per second. This was taken by a French filmmaker who would normally use a SECAM camer which run at 25 feet per second. It may have been converted to NTSC which would further smooth out the result. As always, I'm just speculating but I don't know what equipment was being used.

Unfortunately, then, given the resolution of the video and the frame rate you just aren't going to see those 90msec bumps at all. To resolve this he should find an example where he can see the bumps he mentions and prove empirically that he is correct. I'm just doing my bit as a practicing skeptic. Tony may have a valid point about the nature of the Bazant paper he cites - that if the collapse took place in the manner of their model, then you'd expect to see bumpy movement, I have no issue with that. However, I think that, as I've said over and over again, this kind of model is pointless except to be used as some kind of limiting case.

Your friend's comments, to the effect that it would have been impossible to use the Sauret video and measurements of the roof of WTC 1 every .167 milliseconds to discern whether or not there was any deceleration, are unfounded and simply conjecture.

The very same methods, but with 200 milliseconds between measurements, were used with video of the controlled demolition of the Balzac-Vitry buildng in France. In that case the measurements showed a very discernable deceleration in the velocity graph right when the upper block impacted with the lower block, after falling through two removed stories.

Your friend also apparently did not read or did not understand where it is explained in the paper how it is determined that there was no velocity loss. The actual jolt would not need to be seen. If there was a jolt capable of removing the columns it would have to provide a certain amount of kinetic energy which we can then determine velocity loss from. Given that velocity loss from the pre-impact velocity there would be a recovery window where it would take a certain period of time for the velocity to get back to the pre-impact velocity. The recovery time is approximately 800 milliseconds, within which we are able to take 4 data points. There is no sign of velocity loss as at every one of those data points the velocity is greater than it was just prior to impact.

As for the measurement using a 30 frame per second video and a calibration of 0.88 ft/pixel being worthless after the velocity exceeds 30 ft./second, your friend is wrong in the way he is looking at it. We aren't measuring velocity vs. time directly. We are measuring distance vs. time and that relationship will not change no matter how great the velocity. We then derive velocity from the distance vs. time data. This is explained in the paper.

The reality simply is that the upper block of WTC 1 accelerates at approximately 0.7g through the first nine stories it falls, after which it can't be measured due to obscuration by smoke and debris. It never decelerates. These measurements have been confirmed by others.

1. I interpret Greenings remarks to be something different from what the blogger said - not literally.

2. David Chandler is not a physicist as the BLOGGER claimed.

That's all I said. Period. I actually know that Greening is not a physicist, and I didn't claim that he was. So, from
what I can see, my thinking isn't convoluted on this matter at all, but apparently Gordon Ross has trouble following an argument.

Please post this for me.

I'll get to the physics arguments eventually, but the distortions of what I write I need to comment on soonest.

You friend tried to dicredit David Chandler's argument by casting doubt on his ability to comment on the subject. He could have applied the same logic to Greening's argument with even greater effect, yet chose not to. That is either deliberate bias or convoluted thinking.
If your friend continues trying to defend the official story he will repeatedly find himself being forced to resort to the same tactic.
gordon ross

1. I interpret Greenings remarks to be something different from what the blogger said - not literally.

This is similar to interpreting the bible to mean that the sixth day lasted millions of years. This is not interpretation, this is fantasy. (Or opportunism, or wishful thinking, whichever you prefer). Fact is, the bible is full of shit, and there is no way to spin it. You are now the equivalent of the Catholic church, in damage control mode.

The physicist’s education is based on a knowledge of the laws that govern physical systems"

"physicist = someone who is an expert in physics"

I think David Chandler deserves both the titles 'physicist' and 'mathematician', just like Kevin Ryan deserves the title 'chemist'. Damn good scientists, who taught NIST a lesson. Repeatedly.

The frauds working at NIST, however, are not scientists, rather credentialed criminals complicit in a cover-up of state sponsored terrorism. The final reports on the WTC buildings are SHAMEFUL, shameful pieces of crap. What are you and I going to do about that, instead of conducting pointless ego-based discussions? Are we going to continue to allow the distortion of science for political ends? (Other examples: EPA lies about Manhattan air quality after 9/11, ASCE lies after Katrina, manipulation of EPA reports to downplay climate change)

The value of pointless ego-based discussion is to realize how useless and ultimately destructive it is.

I am not going to comment on your take on the bible, but I will say this: One can learn much from Aesop's Fables which feature talking animals - without arguing about whether or not animals can talk.

Also, one can be both a scientist and a credentialed criminal at the same time. The science of maniupulating evidence in order to deceive - is a science.

There is indeed much "shameful crap" in this world.

"What are you and I going to do about it?" is not exactly an easy question with an easy answer.

"To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch[1] and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."

Hamlet: Act three, scene one -- William Shaklespeare

According to German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:

The essential purport of the world-famous monologue in "Hamlet" is, in condensed form, that our state is so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable to it. Now if suicide actually offered us this, so that the alternative "TO BE OR NOT TO BE" lay before us in the full sense of the words, it could be chosen unconditionally as a highly desirable termination ("a consummation devoutly to be wish'd" [Act III, Sc. I.]). There is something in us, however, which tells us that this is not so, that this is not the end of things, that death is not an absolute annihilation.[3]
(from Wikipedia)

Have been pondering what you said, zmzmzm, and am struggling to find the right response. Much of what has been argued above involves not only ego but ideas--of course. But your comment about the waste of time that pointless ego-based confrontation can be, is a lesson to me in other areas beside 9/11, and I am grateful to you for saying it.

One part of the Hamlet soliloquy that pertains especially to what we've experienced with 9/11 is: "The spurns / That patient merit of the unworthy takes."

(Either version is good, but the non-elided version seems to fit better with modern speech.)

Anyway, here's to plenty more ego-but-also-idea-filled discussions. They are far from pointless, even if they reach clear resolutions only gradually or part of the time.